


Mephistopheles and the Hero

by Bryn Lantry (Bryn)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1993-01-01
Updated: 1993-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:01:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bryn/pseuds/Bryn%20Lantry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More of a psychopath's love</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mephistopheles and the Hero

###

My rabble's saint,  
come kiss me on the corpses of our dead.  
I'll be a hero with you, Blake,  
on my terms.

#

In the thick of certain nightwatches  
your mellowed eyes –  
my only honey-coloured suns  
in this black waste we prowl –  
bruised like over-tender fruits  
with frowning at imperfection,  
in the hushed dusk of my cabin  
look to me for validation.

#

Then, Roj, I demonstrate for you  
the alternate wisdom  
of my teeth in the ripeness  
of your plumply-muscled neck,  
while you sprawl as open as if  
submitting to the psycho-probe,  
and I burrow more intimately  
than any brainbutcher  
to take your body apart  
and piece you back together  
my way.

#

Heroism, as exampled in you –  
half god and half gangster –  
is an odd thing from the inside.  
If we are infamous, why are we so alone?  
I would commit atrocities for survival,  
although your 'bringer-of-freedom' is a ghost ship  
crewed by escapees from the only sure things, death and taxes  
with a bounty of truly heroic proportion on their heads.

#

You realise you can't persevere  
without those events in my cabin –  
regularly.  
Then why resist the facts  
of our admittedly fatigue-syndromed love?  
Personally, I don't believe shame is in your dictionary.  
You whose hubris would overthrow an empire  
and argue with the character of our dirty species.  
While my narrow hubris would only  
undo you and do you  
over and over  
each time slightly more  
mine.

#

Passing for a halo  
is your wild dark tangle  
of curls which only I can witness  
to be soft as warmed butter.  
Your brood over the recalcitrant stars  
and their worse, perverse planets  
with eyes mottled of darkness and light –  
every mood of your blood in which  
I am the final authority upon.  
I watch you and think,  
perhaps we can master galactic history,  
perhaps we can master only our fates.  
Either would be a daredevil feat  
against the enemy of universe.  
Whatever we lose and whenever,  
I am the devil you like best to dare,  
and I know those eyes will dwell more on me  
than on anything  
in this interim before extinction  
which the hero-manufacturers  
will refer to as our golden years.

#

Whenever you fear or doubt,  
come to my cabin.  
Come through the strewn massacred,  
the black uniforms  
like insects infesting all the suns.  
Come, too, through the blood soiling your white ship  
and the anger blasting from the ventilators.  
I will be waiting  
to give you the grace  
of times in which you needn't be homicidal  
nor resolute nor wise nor suicidal.  
Because in this netherworld  
under the flight deck  
no heroes exist.  
Here my philosophy reigns,  
here I manage everything.  
Here I tell you seditious lullabies  
of anti-heroism and hopelessness,  
then bully away the future while you sleep.  
Here you can even despair along with me,  
because this is our secret hell, poor Blake,  
where none of the bastards you fight for can see.

###


End file.
